In order to abide by Leonardo's
publication agreement, this is only the pre-edited version of the article, which
was published in Leonardo,
Volume 33, Nr 3, with 13 of my paintings, which you can find by clicking
on Figures.

The Pathway between Art and Science—One Painter's Metaphorical Journey

Abstract

Guy Levrier describes his understanding of the place and purpose of his Art in the
context of our late twentieth century: he does not accept his
responsibility to society, as an artist, in the current "death of
art" situation. He agrees that abstract Art is not self-explanatory
although its meaning exists in the collective unconscious. To explain his
effort, he has found "metaphors" in quantum physics, to
his predicament which eneble him to link his artistic process to the dynamics of
progress found in science rather to the regression found in the art.

Those of an inquiring mind are always scrupulously careful not to talk about
themselves in the first person; they realise only too well how such a lack
of humility could make them lose their reason, as Euripides1 warned.
But however much they may wish to be the eternal recluse, concentrating on their
work in splendid solitude, in the final analysis they need to communicate their
findings. The researcher will have his own special language in which to express
himself, and whether its formulation be mathematical, logical, chemical or
otherwise, it is this language which will enable him to be understood by his
peers within the limits of his field of investigation.

As a painter, I communicate by means of my painting, but as abstract art is not
something which is self-explanatory, I have no other choice but to comment on it
myself, using words, and furthermore, in the first person singular, for which I
am suitably contrite, for this is a very personal adventure, a narrow way
between art, science and spirituality, which I shall walk with care, conscious
of the need to preserve my reason, under the watchful eye of Euripides, and of
the fact that I am not about to produce some kind of scientific proof.

In this way, I hope to be able to measure, on the one hand, the full impact of
the collective unconscious in my feelings of individual responsibility for the
present state of humanity2, and on the other, its force as a
conceptual source3, as I follow the very subtle course which I intend
to steer between analogy and metaphor.

But first, let us be clear about what we mean by certain terms.

An analogy is defined as a relation of likeness between two things or of
one thing to or with another, consisting in the resemblance, not
of the things themselves, but of two or more attributes, circumstances, or
effects (Webster).

"Analogies are based less on notional resemblances (similitudines),
than on an internal stimulation, on a will to assimilate (intentio ad
assimilationem)."4 I observe here with interest that
the second latin expression expresses the idea of the intention to assimilate.

A metaphor is "the process whereby the inherent meaning of a word is
transported to another meaning which only fits it by virtue of an implicit
comparison" (Larousse).

It is fairly common to find analogy and metaphor taken to mean the same thing in
scientific literature5, and this is why I should like to situate my
approach somewhere between the two. To be more precise, for instance, to give an
example to a young student, I can throw a pebble into the water to create rings
which will give him a rough idea of a light wave in its shape and movement. This
is an analogy: we remain in the world of physics. Once the student has
understood, I can say that "the light" of his mind has
illuminated an obscure notion to understand it. This is a metaphor: a
transposition from the physical domain into the intellectual domain.

From the moment at which my painting, which was originally impressionist, became
abstract, with all the mystery which that implies, I attempted to find words
which would adequately describe what I was feeling, in this search for creation.
Curiously enough, it was in the terminology of quantum physics that I found them,
in their metaphorical form, and I was more surprised than anyone.6

The first thing I did was to ask myself about my motivation: why should I
as a painter have such a need for science, and for quantum physics in particular?7
When I assume my share of individual responsibility in a
dehumanised, decadent society, which has lost control of itself, and is
characterised among other things by the death of its Art, I totally share the
sentiments expressed by Ernst Gombrich, the well known Art historian, when he
writes:

"The advances made by modern science are so astounding that it makes
me feel a little uneasy to hear my university colleagues discussing genetic
codes, when art historians are still talking about the fact that Duchamp sent a
urinal to an exhibition. When you think about the difference in intellectual
level, it's just not possible."8

These then, are the slightly shameful feelings of a specialist in the field who
realises the gulf which exists between the progress of science and the
regression of art.

Consequently,
my position is to reverse the tendency, to link my artistic creation to the
dynamics of progress instead of the decadence of regression, by situating myself
with those who adopt a serious approach: scientists, who work in a
painstaking way for the common good, with the sense of a kind of order in
nature, which I share. That then, is my motivation.9

As for my conceptual source, the story of my metaphorical journey between art and
science is punctuated by three bombshell events:

As an initial approximation, and speaking as a man in the street, I expect the
artist to give me art, the criterion for which, as far as I am concerned, is
beauty, and the scientist, science, the criterion for which is knowledge based,
demonstrable and predictable certainty.

Now for me, Jung's concept of the collective unconscious is validated by the fact
that the idea of non-art, formulated by Malevitch10 in 1918, was
followed 7 years later by the concept of uncertainty, or the limits of knowledge,
proposed by Heisenberg in 1925. This looks like a rather unsettling case of
synchronicity. It seems to me in this particular case that the idea of
uncertainty has a special kind of force when applied to the notion of metaphor.
Anyway, the artist is always in advance of the scientist, as he has the total
freedom which the other cannot have. However, this total freedom has a price,
which is considerable risk-taking, likely to end in total failure, in nothing,
in a sterile void, whereas the scientist is protected by the necessity of
experimental proof.

I can't help thinking that if he had wanted to be sincere when talking about his
work and to listen to what his readers were saying to him, Malevitch would
certainly not have continued down the road of nihilism. After all, it is
precisely this kind of self-check, this kind of self-criticism, which is at the
heart of the process of inspiration and creative work of the artist. Inspiration
requires a lot of hard work. Let us hope that at least this will serve as a
lesson for the future: this experimental act by Malevitch has led us into
the most profound delirium from which we have still not yet recovered in 1998.

Metaphorically speaking, it is as if there were a sort of higher sphere11,
where new concepts emerge by a dual process ( bottom-up from the push of human
progress, and top-down by the pull of God's intervention, or the sum of the
two?); and where seekers of truth can find inspiration:
enabling them, depending on their mental structure, special gifts and personal
willpower, to produce a work of art or science, but with a similar inspiration
born from a same general concept (in our case non-art and limited science).

Second bombshell

The confrontation between Einstein and Bohr over the foundations of quantum physics,
based on the Copenhagen interpretation, according to which "Only
that which is observed is real".

According to Penrose "...the thing which most troubled Einstein was an apparent
lack of objectivity in the way that quantum theory seemed to have to be
described. In my exposition of quantum theory I have taken pains to stress that
the description of the world, as provided by the theory, is really quite an
objective one, though often very strange and counter-intuitive. On the other
hand, Bohr seems to have regarded the quantum state of a system (between
measurements) as having no actual physical reality, acting merely as a summary
of "one's knowledge" concerning that system. But might
not different observers have different knowledge of a system, so the
wavefunction would seem to be something essentially subjective—or
"all in the mind of the physicist"?"12

It will be objected that what is true at microscopic level is no longer so at
macroscopic level: in the field of art it is the macroscopic level we are
concerned with, i.e. the level where traditional physics prevails. Not at all, I
would answer, this is precisely what I felt when I went from the representation
of objects by figurative art to the non-representation of anything by abstract
art. By making this transition I moved forward by a degree in the expression of
my subjectivity.

The point is that when I was an impressionist, I tried to paint a tree, for example,
in the most beautiful way possible, in the hope that the observer would find it
beautiful, very beautiful even, and that was that. I hoped to add to the
intrinsic beauty of the tree the uplifting feeling which I experienced when I
contemplated it and enable the observer to share the sum of the two.

If I stopped painting "impressionist", it was partly
because the process of reproducing objects had become something of a routine for
me, i.e. anti-creative, and partly because the public had become tired of
looking at paintings of objects: it's not enough, there is a demand for
a new sensation, something different, something stronger and more profound. But
it can also be explained by the fact that once you no longer have the support
provided by an object, and you are totally alone in the solitude of your studio,
you feel this call, which comes as much from yourself as from others, so why not
make the effort and reply to it?

"What were you trying to represent?" I am asked by those who have not
yet dared to embark upon the adventure I hold out to them. If I simply wish to
represent an object, of course these questions don't arise: the object is
real and comforting, but if this object is taken away, what remains?
Motherwell answers this question by saying "The prime purpose of
painting is to be the vehicle of human relations". This is precisely
what happens when I answer the question. Knowing in advance what is going to
happen, and depending on my mood and the person I have in front of me, I say
either "Your question is meaningless, because I wasn"t trying
to represent anything at all", which invariably destabilises them a
little, or I make some off the cuff remark such as, "It's a
particle" just for a joke.

This is followed by a silence while they take all this in, and then they say
something like "Oh yes, I hadn't looked at it like that, I was
thinking more of a wave, for example". That's fine: the
viewer could quite easily have come to the same conclusion himself without
asking for my advice, but this exchange between us has set him off on an
adventure into the realm of abstraction, into a reality which belongs to him
alone. So my "real" when I look at this painting is no
truer than the "real" experienced by my viewer, simply by
virtue of the fact that I am it's author, I have no particular authority in
the matter, our "reals" are simply complementary.
Complementarity, ... another concept central to quantum physics.13

This is also the reason why, in the introduction to my Internet sites, I invite the
viewers not to try to guess the dimensions of my paintings, because, from those
of a post stamp to those of a whole universe, it will be their choice again.

So we are not dealing here with a microscopic or macroscopic reality, but with the
real expressed as metaphor, by a sort of "shared archetype"
of the collective subconscious. And the similarity between art and science, in
terms of the common image, is disturbing.

Third bombshell

The resemblance between my perception of my personal process of inspiration and
the new concept of reality, as outlined by Bell's theorem.

Until Einstein, it appeared that matter had a reality which existed independently of
our observation of it, and which it was up to us to discover by our research.
Niels Bohr, in his Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics, maintains that
on the contrary, only that which is observed, exists. Bell, in 1964,
starting from the thought experiment of Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen,
"shows that orthodox quantum theory predicts a correlation between
remote objects which cannot be explained by means of any kind of local reality"14
and thus agrees with Bohr. This theoretical demonstration was
finally confirmed experimentally by Alain Aspect in 1982.

It follows that a higher correlation exists in quantum mechanics, compared to any
theory of local reality: any attempt to understand the real must therefore
take account of the universe as a Whole. It is this correlation which I seem to
have become aware of, like anyone trying to perform an act of creation: it
is a correlation which places me in contact, outside my immediate and local
reality, with the component elements of our "holistic"
universe—i.e. which acts on each of its basic elements, each of which reacts
on the whole of the universe—with its cosmic and psychic forces.

It is as if the creative act necessarily implied that all creators had to work
out their own personal mode of inspiration, while remaining receptive to the
universe, by an exterior and an interior contemplation15, by a
self-checking way of working, by a kind of dialogue with the public and all this
continually evolving, because nothing is fixed in this Whole.

The Necessary and the Sufficient

This great methodological law which applies to mathematics, and uses metaphor, is my
law of creation in my auto-controlled work: say everything there is to say
and only what there is to say, in order to achieve the maximum concentration of
the mind, both of the author and of the viewer, in the exchange, without any
useless verbiage. (Incidentally, it is possible without forcing things, to
extend the metaphor to make it express a moral lesson. It seems to me in fact,
that instead of trying to impose some kind of mythical equality on each other,
we would be much better off and happier if we each tried to obtain just the
necessary and to be satisfied with the sufficient.)

Metaphors are always arguable, and creative people are always arguing about them in their
incessant quarrels over imaginary experiences which go something like
"your metaphor is absurd, while mine is pertinent". Unlike
in science, we haven't got any way of settling the matter by means of
experimentation leading to some form of proof. However, I was incredibly lucky
to discover a very convincing presumption of proof, quite disturbing in fact,
considering that I paint exclusively on a white background, in an article by
Jacques Mandelbrojt, a quantum physicist, mathematician and abstract painter,
who writes:

"...one of the characteristics of my paintings is that apart from
the brushstrokes which are necessary to transmit my mental image, there is only
the white of the canvas or the paper. This can be paralleled with one of the
properties of mathematical reasoning and of the axiomatic method, in which the
minimum necessary assumptions... are made in order to arrive at the most general
result and in order above all to highlight the basic mechanism which underlies a
mathematical property. It is difficult for me to say whether the fact of
representing only the significant details makes reference to mathematics, or
whether it reflects a property of mental images such as that described by
Jean-Paul Sartre: 'The character of Pierre expressed as an
image is "dappled"'."16

This astonishing synchronicity affords additional proof, if it were needed, of the
rightness of Jung's intuition concerning the reality of the collective
subconscious.

So, in the joy of my creation, I subject myself to this methodological rigour
which seems to be so good for our scientific brothers, and I swim along happily
against the present tide of artistic death, just in order to survive. My past
interest in Zen Art, which is coherent with "the Whole" of
Eastern philosophies and the holistic universe of quantum physics, was rewarded
by the following laconic comment made recently by a Benedictine monk on my work:
"To be able to fully appreciate such a painting, one must be
enlightened.

"Anything goes", non-being and non-art

The fashion in art, for the last decades, has been to allow the artist total
freedom: "do whatever you like!" I make
a point of doing exactly the opposite, and what's more, I really try. All
criteria have evaporated in the face of this fashion and the public complains
that it has lost its way. Yves Michaud describes the situation as follows:

"...the judgement involved in aesthetic appreciation is identified
with a judgement based on criteria and norms recognised by a particular
community, and, potentially, by the whole of humanity. The triumph of
'anything goes' thus marks the end of aesthetics and even
of art itself.

Even a moderate version places responsibility for the situation on a failure of
critical judgement, which is incapable of distinguishing adequate criteria(Olivier
Mangin), which lacks the courage to impose them (Domecq), or which has allowed
itself to become marginalised by social change engendering fashion trends,
snobbism and even a kind of terrorism of aesthetic judgement (Le Bot, Gaillard).
In the radical version, art is proclaimed as dead as it is void (Baudrillard)."17

What must be happening inside the head of a man who has devoted his entire life to
art and who ends up painting a white square on a white background and declaring
that it is time to stop painting, both for himself and other painters? How
can such an absurdity be given any credence in art circles in the first place
and as a result by the rest of the general public? Sadly, the answer is
simple: because of money and pseudo-intellectual snobbism.

I observe that those who populate this "world" have managed
to bring about the destruction of our contemporary art, whereas scientists,
faced with a situation which is paradoxical and uncomfortable for those
accustomed to rational thought ("if you believe in quantum physics,
you can't take it seriously") have managed to make advances in
science. The latter have the advantage of experimental verification of their
theories compared to the former. However, artists should have realised that the
reactions of rejection which their work provoked from the general public were
the equivalent of the scientist's experimental verification.

Fortunately,
this public, which represents the last embodiment of sincerity of judgement, has
retained its common sense i.e. reason, and refuses to embrace this movement of
decadence in society and rejects its symbol: non-art. Now the situation
has taken on a whole new and highly alarming aspect since the French Ministry of
Culture commissioned a major sociological study entitled "The
rejection of contemporary art".18

So it's simple,
basically: we are going to have to re-attach ourselves to our moral,
ideological and aesthetic values, to name but a few. The method is the same as
that applied by the lost pilot: look for a guiding star. For us, this will
mean our spirituality. Then we shall have to pick up again from the last known
point on our route: nature. Because nature constantly gives us lessons in
eternal beauty. It will need a lot of work, because you have to work hard to
achieve inspiration, to have the honour of making Art which exists outside of
time.19

Bell, John: A physicist
at CERN, the European elementary-particle laboratory in Geneva, in Switzerland,
John Bell is famous for his theorem, published in 1964, which gave an elegant
solution to the debate between Einstein, defending classical physics, and Bohr
favorable to quantum physics, which involves a new concept of reality. The
theorem proves Bohr right by saying that a higher correlation exists in quantum
mechanics, compared to any (classical) theory of local reality. Consequently,
any attempt to understand reality must take into account the universe as a Whole.

Bohr, Niels (18851962):
One of the foremost scientists
of the 20th century, Niels Bohr was the first to apply the quantum theory,
which restricts the energy of a system to certain discrete values, to the
problem of atomic and molecular structure. He was a guiding spirit and
major contributor to the development of quantum physics.
Bohr won the 1922 Nobel Prize of Physics, chiefly for his work on the structure of atoms.
In his last years, he tried to point out ways in which the idea of complementarity could throw
light on many aspects of human life and thought.

Collective unconscious:
Unitive unconscious—that aspect of our consciousness
that transcends space, time and culture, but of which we are not aware. A
concept first introduced by Jung.

Complementarity:
The characteristic of quantum objects possessing opposite aspects, such as
waviness and particleness, only one of which we can see with a given
experimental arrangement (Goswami).

Einstein, Albert (18791955):
Recognized in his own time as one of the most creative intellects in
human history, Albert Einstein, in the first 15 years of the 20th century,
advanced a series of theories that for the first time asserted the equivalence
of mass and energy and proposed entirely new ways of thinking about space, time,
and gravitation. His theories of relativity and gravitation were a profound
advance over the old Newtonian physics and revolutionized scientific and
philosophic inquiry.

Einstein's
special theory of relativity held that, if, for all frames of reference, the
speed of light is constant and if all natural laws are the same, then both time
and motion are found to be relative to the observer. A mathematical footnote to
the special theory of relativity established the equivalence of mass and energy.
This relationship is commonly expressed in the form E = mc2.

Einstein afterwards
perfected his general theory of relativity, which he published in 1916.
The heart of this postulate was that gravitation is not a force, as Newton
had said, but a curved field in the space-time continuum, created by the
presence of mass.

He was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics "for his photoelectric
law and his work in the field of theoretical physics." Relativity,
still the centre of controversy at the time, was not mentioned.

Malevich, Kazimir (18781935):
Russian painter, founder of the Suprematist school of abstract painting.
In his early work, he followed Impressionism and Fauvism, and was later on
influenced by Picasso and cubism. In 1913 Malevich created abstract geometrical
patterns in a manner he called Suprematism. He published a book entitled
"Die gegenstandslose Welt"("The Nonobjective World"). He constantly strove to produce pure, cerebral
compositions, repudiating all sensuality and representation in art. His
well-known "White on White" (1918; Museum of Modern
Art, New York City) carries his Suprematist theories to their logical
conclusion. He died in poverty and oblivion.

Microscopic:
So small or fine as to be invisible or not clearly distinguished without the use
of a microscope.

Macroscopic:
Large enough to be observed by the naked eye.

Quantum physics:
According to quantum theory, electromagnetic radiation does not always consist
of continuous waves; instead it must be viewed under some circumstances as a
collection of particle-like photons, the energy and momentum of each being
directly proportional to its frequency (or inversely proportional to its
wavelength, the photons still possessing some wavelike characteristics).
Conversely, electrons and other objects that appear as particles in classical
physics are endowed by quantum theory with wavelike properties as well, such a
particle's quantum wavelength being inversely proportional to its momentum.

Although atomic
energies can be sharply defined, the positions of the electrons within the atom
cannot be, quantum mechanics giving only the probability for the electrons to
have certain locations. This is a consequence of the feature that distinguishes
quantum theory from all other approaches to physics, the indeterminacy (or
uncertainty) principle of Werner Heisenberg.

Although it deals with probabilities and uncertainties, the quantum theory has
been spectacularly successful in explaining otherwise inaccessible atomic
phenomena and in thus far meeting every experimental test. Its predictions,
especially those of QED, are the most precise and the best checked of any in
physics; some of them have been tested and found accurate to better than one
part per billion.

Synchronicity:
Acausal but meaningful coïncidences, a term employed by C.G.Jung

Uncertainty principle:
One can never be exactly sure of both the position and the
velocity of a particle: the more accurately one knows the one, the less
accurately one can know the other (Hawking).